Citizens Abduct and Gang-Rape Young Girl

[Citizens GoneCrazy]

 

Trial begins today for second abduction, rape suspect June 1, 2004
STUART,FLORIDA -- Jury selection in the trial of a second man accused of
the May 2002 abduction and gang rape of a young Port St. Lucie woman
begins today at the Martin County Courthouse.
Derek Limburg, 23, of Kingston, Tenn., told detectives he drove the car
from the parking lot of a Hutchinson Island condominium after his friend
grabbed the 21-year-old woman and forced her into the back seat.
But he denied raping her after driving her to a Palm City home, where,
she said, she was repeatedly raped by at least two men.
"Mr. Limburg did not participate in any sexual battery," defense
attorney Nathaniel Burke said last week, noting DNA evidence linked two
co-defendants to the crime, but not Limburg.
Sean Hartzog, 26, also of Kingston, was sentenced in February to life in
prison after a St. Lucie County jury concluded he forced the woman into
the car, covered her head with a ski mask, bound her hands with duct
tape and raped her.
DNA evidence linked Hartzog and John Patrick Perry, 31, of Palm City, to
the rape, court records show.
Perry, who lived at 872 S.W. Willow Lane, where the rape occurred,
pleaded no contest last year to a sexual battery charge and is awaiting
sentencing.
Limburg's trial was moved to Stuart after Hartzog's trial was highly
publicized in St. Lucie County.
"I feel Derek Limburg is a victim in this case and had it not been for
him, this woman may have been killed," Burke said last week.
The woman told jurors in Hartzog's trial she pleaded for her life and
promised her attackers she would not tell anyone if they let her go.
She said the men discussed killing her, but Hartzog eventually drove her
back to the Miramar Condominium parking lot, where she had been abducted
hours earlier.
By that time, deputies were in the parking lot investigating a report by
a friend that the woman had not arrived for a scheduled visit and her
car had been found abandoned in the parking lot. Her shoes, earrings and
cellphone were found nearby.
Deputies at the scene followed Hartzog's car after he dropped off the
woman and arrested him outside a strip club in Stuart.
A ski mask and a man's flip-flop matching one found at the Miramar
parking lot after the abduction were found in the car.
Deputies found Limburg at Perry's home the next day and arrested him
after questioning him at the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office. He is
charged with sexual battery, kidnapping and robbery, charges punishable
by life in in prison.
Prosecutors have listed a prison inmate, who claims Limburg confessed to
him that he raped the woman, as a potential witness in the trial, which
is expected to last more than a week.
Arsonist Marty Grayson, who was housed with Limburg in the St. Lucie
County jail in late 2002, told investigators Limburg bragged to him
after he learned DNA evidence did not link him to the crime that he wore
a condom when raping the woman.
"He has no credibility and his motives are obvious," Burke said.
Grayson wrote letters to prosecutors last year demanding his own
sentence be reduced before he testify.
After Hartzog's sentencing three months ago, the victim said her
attackers took "my dignity, my self-worth and my confidence.... They
took a huge part of what makes me me."